Mordecai Warns Esther

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Great was the terror of the Jews, great the anguish of Mordecai when the bloody decree of Ahasuerus was proclaimed against the race. All “the city Shushan was perplexed.” What meant this sudden license to murder? Mordecai “rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes.” He went through the city crying out in the streets. He stood before the king’s palace and cried out. So that at length even the secluded Queen Esther heard of his presence there and sent with womanly tenderness to clothe him and learn the cause of his misery.

‎Mordecai sent her his command that she should go to the king, reveal her kinship and entreat mercy for her race. Thus, for the first time, Esther learned of the terrible decree. She was in sore perplexity; for there was a law that no one, not even the queen, might approach Ahasuerus without being summoned. Anyone who did so was immediately slain unless the king himself pardoned the intruder by touching him with his golden sceptre. This word the queen sent to Mordecai; but he answered with scorn that if her race were destroyed she also would be detected and would perish. With high faith, he pointed out that perhaps all her honor had been given her just that she might accomplish this rescue of her people. If she failed, then would deliverance come to the Jews from some other source, and she would be disgraced forever.